


From Darkness to Light

by Rachel Wilder (rwilder)



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rwilder/pseuds/Rachel%20Wilder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season one, Max and Logan begin to grow closer, opening up both emotionally and physically with one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out of Trust

Logan can make me crazy. Crazy mad. Crazy worried. Before him, I never had to deal with these kinds of emotions. I just did my thing and got out of there. Nobody got hurt, nobody had to get all worked up.

Things are changing and it's not for the better. Or then again, maybe it is. Maybe there is hope for a revved up chick like me to actually have a normal life after all.

I don't know what possessed me to ask him over to dinner to begin with. I mean, Logan, he's a great cook and, well, I know a lot of pizza delivery guys. But before I could stop the words, they were coming out.

"So, you wanna come to my place for dinner tomorrow?"

He looked at me kinda cross-eyed and then said yes. The fool said yes.

But it all went to hell in the end. No dinner, no pre-pulse wine, just mayhem, murder and a bunch of kids getting sold off the street. Which brings me to tonight. He asked for a rain check. I'm just not sure what the rain check is for...the dinner or the emotions that were going with it. I'm not sure I'm ready to pay up on either account.

* * *

"The world will still be broken in the morning."

I can't believe he just said that. Is Logan Cale really admitting that he can turn his attentions to something else? The pasta tricolore won't be THAT good, I can promise you that!

Or maybe it's ...someone else.

I'm all messed up on my feelings about him. I can't think straight and that's never, ever been my problem. I was ready to walk away from it all, from him, but as soon as Bling told me he was in trouble, I was right back in it. I couldn't not help. I couldn't imagine not having him in my life.

Man, I'm in big trouble.

I pull the pan of boiling pasta off the stove and follow Logan's directions to drain it in the colander he put in the sink. I test the water to make sure it's hot enough and then begin rinsing the pasta. I can tell he's right behind me, watching my every move, but I don't dare look back at him. I'm afraid that everything will be completely clear to him.

I grab a bowl from the cupboard and pour the pasta in it. Moving past him, I set it on the table. I wait for him to come join me. There are three chairs to choose from, but he's set my plate at the one to his left, right next to him. I sit down and watch while he pours a glass of wine. I need to be careful. This wine is pre-pulse and will have a much stronger effect. I need to keep control tonight.

I try to listen to him chatter about his life before, a story about his mom, some vacation they took, but I can't really listen. I'm watching his chest rise and fall, the fork going up to his mouth, the way his mouth moves as he chews. Instead of drinking the wine, I'm drinking in Logan Cale. Every drop of him.

"Max?"

My head snaps up, I have no idea what he just said.

"What?" I manage to sputter out.

"I wondered if you might want to go into the living room? For coffee?"

I nod wordlessly. I don't even want coffee, but that doesn't matter.

I follow him into the living room, carrying the tray with the coffee and two cups. I set the tray down on the coffee table while he transfers from his chair to the couch. The lights of Seattle are twinkling outside the windows and again I'm amazed how peaceful the city looks from up here. I wish I could take him to the Needle. I'd love to share that place with him.

I turn back and find him relaxed on the couch. I slip my shoes off and join him. I sit next to him for a moment and then, without saying anything, turn so I am lying on the couch, my head in his lap.

"Hard day?" he asks, threading his fingers through my curly hair.

I nod. It's been a hard week. I recover quickly, but I got pretty banged up at the first airstrip and then the situation with Logan and Bronck...well, it took it out of me.

I close my eyes, relaxing as he continues to touch my hair, then runs his fingers along the edge of my face.

"God, Max...you're so..."

My eyes snap open. I'm so what?

Logan doesn't answer. Instead he leans forward and gently touches my lips. He's so soft, even with his beard. I had kissed him before, but this was different. There wasn't the same urgency as outside the cabin. This wasn't an end. It was a beginning.

I sit up and turn to face him. Our eyes lock as we simultaneously tried to decide if this is the right move. The edges of his lips curve up and I take it as a sign of agreement. I lean in and kiss him again, my hand around the back of his head, pulling him closer. His hand slips down to touch my breast. My nipple quickly hardens under his touch. This is different than my heat, it's not that my body feels ripe and ready, but that I want it. I'm deciding to be here now, instead of the hormones making me do it.

Rising now onto my knees, I move on either side of his legs. I sit back on my knees, nearly sitting on his lap.

"I want you, Logan." It is the most honest thing I have ever said. No games, no diversions. I want him now.

He swallows and nods.

I kiss him again, this time deeper, pressing further into his mouth, exploring every capped tooth of his. He tastes so sweet, with the wine and pasta sauce mixing perfectly. I slip my hands down his shirt, loosening the buttons as I go. Running my hands over his chest, I can feel his well-developed muscles. My hands rove further, down the sides of his chest as Logan continues to kiss me.

Now his hands are on me again, pulling my shirt off, loosening my bra. My breasts spring free and he takes them in his hands again. Breaking from our kiss, his mouth moves down my neck and across my chest. He nips lightly at me again and again, until he reaches my nipples. They are erect and waiting for him.

I had often wondered what being intimate with Logan might be like. I didn't know what we could and could not do. My worries are for naught...what we are doing is more than enough.

"Bed," Logan gasps as I arch my back away from his latest kiss.

I slip off his lap so he can slide back into his chair. I follow him into his room, pulling back the duvet so he can move into the bed easily. He stops next to the bed and pivots so he is facing me. He grabs my hand and pulls me closer. He tenderly kisses my belly, licking around the edge of my navel. I laugh, it tickles a bit.

Not responding, he pops the button on my jeans and slides the zipper down. His hands move in, sliding my panties and jeans down to my knees. I pick my feet up, kicking the pants loose and away from us.

Logan pulls me closer again, now his face is even with my mound. He reaches up and touches my clit. I gasp slightly. I am wet and ready to go at any second. He touches it again, this time moving his fingers over it quickly, like a butterfly. He leans in and gently tongues it again. And again. I begin to pant, my breaths coming shorter and shorter.

"Oh, god, Logan!" I gasp. His hands massage my ass as he continues to move his tongue over me. I have never had a man do this for me before.

My body begins to shudder as the waves of pleasure move over me.

"Are you okay, Max?" he asks, mistaking my orgasm for a seizure.

"God, yes," I answer.

I reach down, slipping my hands under his arms. I pull him up to me for a moment, kissing him as he stands, balancing on unfeeling legs in front of me. I quickly lower him to the edge of the bed. He slides back, against the pillows, pulling his legs after him.

"I don't know what..."

I interrupt his concerns with more kisses. I don't know what will work either, but I want to do for him what he has already done so ably for me.

I am on top of him, my legs on either side of his. I slip his shirt from his shoulders and run my hands down his arms. He is totally ripped. My hands slide lower, down to his hips. I slip my hands into his jeans and pause.

"Go on," he says.

I slide the jeans from his slim hips, leaving him only in his boxers. I don't know if I should keep going or not. I pause for a moment until Logan reaches for my chin, raising my eyes to meet his.

"It's okay," he says quietly.

My hands return to his chest, moving, caressing. I lean in and kiss his neck, then lower. I trickle down the thin line of hair leading to his navel, nipping, licking and sucking.

"I'm going to have to keep my shirt on tomorrow," Logan teases, as I was now aware of the line of little hickies I have left on his chest and abdomen.

I stop, embarrassed at what I have done.

"No, don't stop, Max."

I slide my hands under his boxers, starting to slip them down. I pause again, still unsure. Suddenly I feel Logan's hands on mine, encouraging me to completely disrobe him.

I'm not sure what is causing my reticence. I have seen a man's junk before. Hell, if I wanted to see Logan's, I could have snuck a peek under the sheets when he was in the hospital, but this is different. Very different.

"I don't know what it'll do, Max," Logan says, holding my gaze. "Sometimes it seems fine and other times, there's nothing. I don't know..."

I nod and finish pulling off the shorts. It lays there, limp and pink. I put my tongue on it, tasting it.

Honestly, this has never been my thing. When I'm in heat, it's always all about me, about getting my job done, getting me off. I have never gone down on anyone. Hell, I've never even done it when I wasn't in heat. This isn't about somebody doing something for me, getting me off, this is about me wanting to be with Logan. God, I want to be with Logan.

I stroke it a little more. The cat DNA isn't all about my cycles and jumping, this feels just a little bit like I'm cleaning Logan's coat. I move further up the shaft, then stop.

"Logan," I start, not sure what I'm going to say. "This...this is about you having pleasure, not doing something for me. I want to do something for you."

He nods, understanding what I'm asking. His hand reaches out for mine and brings it back up to his breast.

"Do me here."

* * *

I'm lying in Logan's bed, his arms holding me close. I never thought that I would have something like this, that I would ever get this close to someone. Needless to say, they never taught us about intimacy at Manticore.

I know that I should just get moving. I've got work today and Kendra is going to need more than five seconds of explanation about why I didn't come home last night, let alone what Original Cindy's going to do when she sees the big dumb look on my face, cause I don't need to see a mirror to know that there's one plastered there.

"Morning," Logan mumbles against my back. He kisses me lightly on my bar code. It tickles a little bit.

I roll over to face him. His eyes are still half-closed and a bit unfocused without his glasses. I don't want to just run out on him, but Normal is going to be on my ass if I don't jam.

"So, after I fix the world today, you think you might come over for dessert?"

I nod. I don't know where this is all going, but I'm pretty sure that Logan and I can never go back to what we were. It's just no longer possible.


	2. A Helping Hand

If that's practice, then I'm a new believer in the credo that practice makes perfect.

* * *

  
_A week earlier_

I wasn't worried when she left that morning, the morning after we first did it. That was just Max, but as the day went on my creative mind starting making all sorts of excuses for her bolting. It was too much too soon. It was too weird for her. We were too different for this to ever work, let alone my physical shortcomings. What had she gotten out of it? She might appreciate me for my mind, but the limp legs, hell, the limp dick, were not attractive additions. My mind raced with reasons for her never speaking to me again.

I decided to work my anxiety out with an extra-long therapy session with Bling, followed by a complete overhauling of my office. The piles were starting to get out of hand and I knew of at least ten things I had been recently looking for that had disappeared into the mess. I had always been a fairly organized guy, but lately, well, my organizational skills had fallen off. Maybe it was related to the daydreaming. Man, meet a woman and you totally fall apart. Even Bling had noticed, commenting one day that when he first met me I never lost my cell phone, now it seemed to be  
missing every third day.

In the second-to-last pile I found one of the missing items...the cream-colored invitation I had received from my aunt the month before. As I picked it up the reply card slipped out. Damn. I thought I had remembered to return that one.

I picked the card up off the floor and stared at it. Name of guests...well, I guess a date was definitely an option now. Would Max want seafood or the vegetarian entrée?

Before I could lose my nerve I reached for the phone.

"Aunt Margo, it's Logan. About the wedding..."

* * *

_This Morning_

I meant to ask her, but well, things got in the way. Each time I was going to mention the wedding, and my hope that she would go with me, we had to confront things like South African super warriors, or Bruno Anselmo. I knew that I should move on, forget what Bruno did to me, but there was more than a little bit of me that was happy to hear he was dead. Hopefully, this time it would be for real.

It was Bling who got me into the wheelchair basketball league. He thought it would be a good way for me to get out, to develop some social skills. He was really disturbed by my obsession with Anselmo. I resisted for a long time, but ultimately I caved in to his intense and unrelenting pressure.

It's been a great way to meet some other guys dealing with the things that seem to affect my daily life now. Of course I was a bit taken aback the first day when Joe started going off about his bowel management problem and Cliff shared his experiences with a new leg bag. We had definitely moved beyond pulling each other's jock straps and talking about who we nailed the night before.

A lot of these guys have done some serious chair time. I'm still a newbie, finding my way. When I got there today I ran into Ron, a guy about my age that had broken his back in a bike accident when he was fifteen.

"Logan, man, you're looking good today!" he called out as he rolled onto the court. I had come early to work on my hook shot. My neighborhood just isn't the kind of place where you put up a hoop. I threw the ball up and it swished through the hoop again. Seven out of eight.

I nodded as I threw up another shot. I was good. Max and I had started doing something that I wasn't sure I was ever going to be able to do again. It felt damned good.

"Yep, something's different here..." Ron teased as he pulled his chair up by mine. "You look, well, you look damned happy, Logan. This smiley, happy-go-lucky appearance is not your usual game face."

I smiled and looked down, quite frankly a little embarrassed that my new found pleasure was so obvious. "Well, you could say I got over a hump last week."

"Hump?" Ron asked.

Shit. Where the hell did that word come from? Hump. It's like a gynecologist calling a penis "Mr. Chuckles." Hump.

"Sex. I had sex."

Ron laughed and nodded. "So you did, guy. So you did. Your first?"

I knew what he meant. My first since the accident. Yeah, she definitely is. I nodded.

"Everything go okay?" he asked.

"Pretty well," I answered. "We kind of played it by ear, but yeah, it went okay."

"Well, if I can ever offer some advice, you let me know. I've gotten over a couple of 'humps' now."

I smiled. It's our code word now, me and Ron.

"Anyway, you might want to check this out," he said, stopping to write on a piece of paper from his bag. When he's finished, he hands it to me. It's a web site address. I decided to check it out when I got home. And then I would definitely tell Max about the wedding. No more stalling.

* * *

_This afternoon_

I lean forward, concentrating on the words on the screen.

_If you are a paraplegic male, with practice, you can learn to have intercourse in the "on-top" position using the "stuffing" technique. The man can assume the top position and, with his fingers, tuck his flaccid, soft penis into the vagina. By thrusting her hips and using the muscles of her  
vagina, his partner takes the soft penis into her vagina with a sort of pulling, sucking movement. While the flaccid penis gives a sensation of penetration that can be very satisfying in itself, the motion of the hips and the muscle action of the vagina often cause a reflex erection._ [<http://calder.med.miami.edu/pointis/handbook.html>.]  


"What's got you so wrapped up?" Max asks, her voice over my shoulder.

I alt-tab the screen away and turn to face her.

"Don't you ever use the doorbell?"

"I rang and Bling even let me in. You were the one who was all unaware. So, what had your attention?"

"Nothing," I answer. I'm not quite ready to share the "stuffing" technique with Max.

"Didn't look like nothing."

"Well, it was." God, she is so cute when she is curious. Must be the feline DNA. "Can I help you?"

"Nah, I just thought I'd check in...see what was happening around here," she says.

I nod. Now would be a good time to ask her about the wedding, but instead my mind is stuffed with the thought of stuffing.

"Must've been good..."

"It was nothing, Max." I push past her and go into the kitchen. I expect her to follow me, but she doesn't. It takes me a minute to figure out why, but when I do, I spin back and find her leaning over my computer screen.

"Dammit, Max. That's not very respectful of my privacy," I say, unable to look her in the eye. "If I wanted you to read that, I would have shared it. You going to go through my e-mail, too, now?"

"I can do this," she answers, smiling at me.

I look back at her, questioning. Is she sure? Shit, what have I gotten myself into?

* * *

"It's not very romantic," I say as I lift myself into the bed.

"What isn't?" she asks as she pulls her shirt off.

"Well, we've printed off instructions from a web site, sent Bling to the grocery store two sectors over and now we're going to do our homework?" I slide back against the pillows and reach down to straighten my legs. Even with all of the workouts I do with Bling, I can't believe how thin they've  
gotten. I wonder if Max notices.

"We work now so we can play later. I liked what we did the other time, but I'm willing to give anything a try once..."

She's smiling at me, with the devilish look she has so often. God, it melts me.

I think I'm going to like practicing.

Max crosses to me, slipping her bra off. She's an incredible specimen. Her arms are perfect, so muscular and shapely. I love the light caramel tone to her complexion, so much more interesting than my pasty white boy skin. She leans down over me and brushes her lips across mine. I swear I can feel a tingle all the way down to my toes. I lean forward so I can deepen the kiss. She responds by crawling on the bed. She kneels in front of me, her legs on either side of mine and continues to kiss me, now pressing me back against the pillows.

Our kiss ends and she smiles gently at me. She slips her pants off and reaches for my shirt. She pulls it from my shoulders and reaches for my zipper. We've done this before and I trust her, but I still wish that it was darker in the room. I'm uncomfortable about how it looks down there. I let out a little breath, almost a sigh, really.

"Are you okay with this, Logan?"

"Yes. I...of course. Why?"

"You act like you're bracing yourself," she answers as she lifts my leg and pulls my pants off.

I shake my head. It's not that, but I'm just not quite ready for all of this. I don't want her to think that I'm unhappy with her, that I don't want to be with her, but shit, I'm scared. It's like the first time was a fluke. To do this regularly, it means a commitment and I'm not sure she would want that. I'm not sure that I can take rejection. It's like I'd rather she go now than later. Later will hurt more and I'm not sure how much more hurt I can take.

"So, we're supposed to..." Max gestures with her hands to indicate that I'm supposed to be on top. I guess gravity rules the day on this one. I lever myself up, but before I can move over her, she's flipped me up on top of her. Nothing like messing around with the superhero girlfriend...

"Hey, you okay?" I ask, raising myself up with my right arm. She nods and moves slightly, sliding beneath me toward the headboard.

"So," Max says, her eyes scanning my face.

"So."

I slip my hands down and touch my penis. It's strange to see it like this now. For much of my life I prided myself on having a nice dick. Before my accident I always thought I was a good lover. I knew how to pleasure the woman I was with, always did pretty good for myself, too. Hell, if I  
wasn't with anyone at the time, I did all right on my own. The past few months had been a totally different experience...a very frustrating experience. Instead of pleasure, this part of my body had become about bodily function, tubing and sterile procedures. There was no pleasure whatsoever.

I hold my penis in my hand and reach for Max. I touch her and can feel that she's slightly wet. I brace myself over her, and start to stuff the penis in her. Her hand reaches over and touches my hand. She helps me. It's weird, I'm limp, but I can sense that she's pulling me inside of her.

"You're in," she says, breathing a little more heavily now.

I rock up on her, rubbing my hips against her. "Is that working?"

"Yes, god, yes, Logan," she calls. She arches her back and pulls me in further. "You're getting hard!" Reflex erection, it does work. I can't imagine that we can get any closer.

Without warning, she flips me over, so I am now under her. I'm not sure if I'm still in her, but she doesn't seem to mind.

She begins moving her hands over the skin along my sides. I'm very sensitive there, especially at the line of my injury where the nerves aren't quite sure what to feel. Her mouth now moves to my nipples. Her tongue plays with my left nipple as it becomes more sensitive and engorged. I squirm a bit against the mattress.

"Is it too much?" she asks.

No, I shake my head. I'm not sure I can speak right now. I'm just amazed that we've gotten so close, so quickly. I feel like I've been with Max forever.

I hear the front door open and close. Bling is back. Max suddenly gets shy and rolls off to my side, tucking her head next to my arm.

"How are we going to get out of here?" she asks.

"I think he knows what's going on, Max," I answer. "He's a smart guy, and anyway, he's the one who made me realize that I...well...that there was more to this than just a friendship."

She looks up at me. "Bling?"

"And Kendra and Original Cindy didn't press you on it?"

She laughs. "Yeah, well, they've been convinced something was going on since I met you. God, Logan, I could lie here in your arms all night, but I promised Kendra we'd do something tonight. She feels like I'm abandoning her, with my new extra-curriculars."

She wants to stay here with me, that's all I can focus on. I want to hold her in my arms like this forever.

"You want a shower first?" I ask.

"You want to take one with me?" she teases.

I nod. I guess this is a day of experimentation. I reach for my boxer shorts and put them on, then transfer into my chair. As Max heads for the bathroom, I go to find Bling.

"Hey, Bling, I think we're done here for the day, you can take off," I say, pulling a t-shirt over my head.

"You sure, Logan?"

"Yeah, I'm just gonna fix a little dinner, stay in," I answer, trying to look casual.

"Max need anything from the store?" he asks.

I start to respond, but then realize he's teasing. "Good night, Bling."

* * *

  
"How hot do you like it?" Max asks as she adjusts the water in the shower.

"I..." I want to have a witty comeback, but I'm a little overwhelmed from the day and nothing's coming to mind. "However you like it."

I slip my t-shirt and boxers back off and push my chair toward the shower. Max is already in there, naked, her wet hair curling around her neck.

"Do you need help?" she asks.

I shake my head. I've gotten used to the routine in here. I reach for the bar and pull myself easily from the chair onto the bench along the back end of the shower. I usually set up the water to come through a movable shower head, but tonight Max has it coming out of the regular shower head. It hits me above my head, the water running down onto my hair, over my face, steaming up my glasses.

"Here, let me get those," she says, taking my glasses from my face.

I look back up at her, her form now slightly fuzzy. I love her breasts. It sounds so junior high, but they really are perky. I want to take them in my mouth.

"Come here," I say, gesturing to the floor in front of me. Max kneels down on the tile. I lean forward and take her left breast in my mouth. I feel her nipple harden as I continue to run my tongue around the edge of her areola. She leans in and nips gently at my ear. Her left arm reaches for the wall, bracing herself as her right hand slides along my left side. I move to her right breast and continue to suckle. I run my tongue around the edges of her nipples, loving how they grow hard inside of me. I grew hard inside of her. I can hardly wipe the smile from my face.

"You're pretty pleased with yourself," Max says, laughing at me.

I can't help it. We did it. Hell, I did IT.

Standing up, she takes the bottle of shampoo in her hands. She pours some in her palm and begins to work it into her hair.

"Let me do that."

She kneels in front of me and I take her hair in my hands, kneading it, moving the soap through her tresses. She stands up for a moment and grabs the movable shower head. I take it in my hand and begin rinsing the soap from her hair. It's thick and I need to keep moving my hand through her  
hair to get all of the soap out of it.

"You next?" she asks.

I nod.

Again she pours the minty-scented soap into her hands. She slips her hands onto my head, massaging my scalp as she moves the shampoo through my hair. I groan with pleasure and relax even more. I can tell that I'm beginning to slip off the bench when she grabs me and pushes me back.

"Easy there," she says and leans down to kiss me. Nothing is an accident with Max.

I grab the soap and a loofah and begin to work on her legs. She turns so I can run it over her back and down her ass. She giggles a bit as it tickles along her hips. She turns back to me with a washcloth, covered in soap.

"Can I do your chest?"

I nod, she can do anything she wants to. She moves the cloth across my chest, abrading it slightly. My nipples respond to the slight roughness of the cloth. Everything is responding tonight. She reaches for me and pulls me up in front of her, her left arm steadying me while her right hand  
moves across my back. Her hand comes around the front now, moving along my penis and then my balls. I can only imagine how they might respond if they knew what my brain was thinking.

Max eases me back down on the bench and turns the water off. She quickly slips out and gets towels for both of us. I love what we are doing together, but I can't help but mourn for what we have lost. I guess I have to get over that. Some things aren't going to change.

"Well...I should get going now," Max says reluctantly.

"Yeah, but it's been amazing," I answer.

"Amazing," she echoes.

It isn't until she leaves that I realize I still haven't asked her about the wedding.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow.


	3. Wild and Free

Max turned and headed toward her bike, the look on Logan's face as she handed him his mother's locket still locked in her brain. She slipped out of the door of Fogle Towers and turned to the left. The bike was missing.

Shit!

She knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but she never assumed it would be in this ritzy part of town. Guess it was true...crime was portable. Took the thieves long enough to figure out that pickins' might be better in this sector, where people still actually had things worth stealing.

Damn. She liked that bike, too. What a night...the wedding, Logan's family, Normal, the mixed up packages...she wasn't Superman but on a night like this she was wishing for his cape. It would sure help out with her current transportation situation.

She turned to go back into Logan's apartment to call Original Cindy when she remembered...Logan had picked her up at Jam Pony. There was no bike outside the building to be stolen.

Damn, she was getting forgetful!

She turned to start walking home, when she looked up. The man's lights were still on.

* * *

Logan reached down and stroked this calf muscle. He definitely felt it. There was sensation and if he pulled up his pants, he just knew that he would see the muscle working.

Sam had sworn up and down that the injury was permanent. The only thing that could happen was the bullet fragment they left behind could shift and cause more damage. He could only get worse, never better.

But he was better. He could feel...and he could probably move.

"Something wrong?"

Logan swiveled to find Max standing behind him. He looked to make sure his pant leg was still down.

"Don't you ever knock?" he asked, his voice half teasing, half accusing. What had she seen? How long had she been there?

"Something wrong with your leg?" she asked, crossing to sit on the coffee table in front of him.

Dear God, that dress nearly undid him. He wondered if she had any concept of how she looked in it.

"Uh, no . . . little spasm. They come sometimes."

She nodded. She had seen them before...like small seizures in his limbs that were usually so still. Logan hadn't mentioned them, so she hadn't either.

"I . . . uh. . . . ." She knew why she had come back, but now it felt uncomfortable. She and Logan were closer than they had ever been, but there were still so many unspoken things between them.

He looked over at her, his eyes trailing down her body, taking in each inch of the dress...her curves...how she filled it.

"I decided since you were buying the dress, I didn't need to be Cinderella tonight."

"So you'll stay?" he asked, reaching for her hand.

She nodded. He pulled her toward him, until she was sitting on his lap. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. He was always so soft, so gentle. He was definitely the most considerate lover Max had been with. His kisses trailed down her neck, to the point where the dress met her skin. He touched his lips to the sweet spot between her breasts, inhaling her scent. She dipped her head down to meet his lips, this time her tongue probing into his mouth. She hungrily bit at him, until he pulled back. His lips returned to her body, trailing down her bare arms, nipping at the tender spot inside her elbow. He stopped to suck lightly at her fingertips, then stopped and turned to her.

"As much as I love this dress, Max, I think I'm ready to see you without it on."

* * *

He wheeled into the bedroom and stopped next to the bed. Max slipped from his lap and stood in front of him. She still wasn't sure where to start with him, here...in the bedroom. She was game for anything, but the truth was Logan presented more of a challenge for her than most of the men she had been with. It wasn't that she didn't like a challenge, but it was more than just the physical aspects. She also cared about him, more than she was willing to admit. Together it made her very afraid of doing the wrong thing.

"I'm just going to..." Logan pointed toward the bathroom, his voice trailing off.

She nodded. She knew that there were things about his condition that he wasn't ready to share. What went on in the bathroom...that was definitely one of them. There were things about her that he knew about...the seizures for one, but other things she would keep to herself for as long as necessary, like the dark moments from her childhood, the violence...as well as her more feline predilections. She didn't need to watch him pee to feel close to him.

She heard the water run and then Logan appeared in the door again.

"Good. I was hoping you would still have it on."

Damn, he did like the dress.

He moved across the floor to her, reaching his hand around her back until he had the zipper. He gently pulled down until the dress slipped from her body. Her body was so perfect. It took his breath away each time he saw her. He loved that she was proud of it. She didn't flaunt it, but she didn't hide herself away like some women did. She was an amazing woman and he was so lucky to have her.

"Earth to Logan."

He looked up at her and smiled. "Sorry, my mind was...well, damn, Max, when you're in front of me, I can't think of anything else."

She laughed and then leaned in to kiss him. "You're not so bad, yourself, Logan Cale."

She stepped out of the dress and sat down on the bed facing him. Her hands trailed down the side of his face to his neck, loosening the buttons on his shirt. She slipped her hand inside his shirt and ran her hands down his chest. His muscles were so well defined.

Logan smiled at her gentle touch and leaned in to kiss her. He was a lucky man...he needed to remember that. Life was not over and his pity party needed to end. It didn't matter what his uncle thought...the pained expression on his snooty aunt's face. Max was here with him. That's what mattered.

Max's hands roved lower . . . loosening the waistband of his pants. She slipped her hands in . . . and then out.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed.

He smiled at her. "You want to hop on?"

She looked down. Logan was fully erect. She had felt him grow hard within her, but had never actually seen it. It was a thing of beauty. She pulled his pants and boxers the rest of the way off.

"Do you want to move?" she asked, pointing to the bed.

He shook his head. "Let's try it here. I set the brake."

Logan was always so serious. She knew that he had a more light-hearted side, but there was something about him tonight. It was like he was on something. He seemed high...but not on drugs, just life. Maybe it was the locket, or the artwork...who knew, but she was going to enjoy it.

Max carefully climbed on his lap, her back against his chest. She loved the feeling of him behind her, so solid. She lifted herself up and slipped on, his engorged penis filling her. She rocked slightly forward, the wheels of the chair straining against the brake. His hand slipped down to touch her, massaging her clit gently.

"Not so easy, Logan," she called. "More!"

His hand slipped back and forth more quickly. He could see her moving up and down, his body moving in and out of hers. He swore he could feel her on his lap...the pressure was there.

Finally she slipped from his lap, onto the bed.

"Did I wear you out?" he asked, smiling at her. His body was covered with a thin layer of sweat...and Max. Max was all over him.

"You're going to have to take that chair in the shower with you?" she teased. "That or smell like sex all day long."

"I can think of worse ways to go through the day," he responded, transferring from the chair to the bed so he could lie next to her.

"Logan..."

"Yes," he answered, his response muffled as he kissed her hair, drinking in every inch of her.

"How?"

"Well...after we sent Bling out the other day, he and I had the TALK...the frank sexual talk that I would have gotten in therapy if I had stuck around. He approved of our stuffing, but also told me about some other techniques...some more invasive stuff. There are pills...and injections that will help."

"So you can..."

"No, there's still nothing there, but I don't need to ejaculate to know that I'm satisfied. You make me come alive, Max, unlike anything else in my life and sharing this with you...that's part of it."

She collapsed against him, his body enveloping hers. It was so different with Logan. She couldn't quite put her finger on it...it was really the first time she had ever been with someone because she wanted to, rather than having the hormones overwhelm her until there was nothing she could do but find a guy and bag him. But Logan was so much more...his hands on her skin, his body against hers. It was sensual in a way she couldn't quite describe.

"You okay?" he asked, as he wrapped his arms tight around her.

"Better than okay," she answered.

He slid even closer to her, their bare skin touching the whole length of their bodies. Her legs were so soft, newly shaven. Her legs.

He could feel her legs against his. He wanted to sit up, to watch his legs and see if they would move. He wanted to tell her.

But he couldn't. Not yet. Not until he knew what was happening for sure.

 


	4. All Through the Night

Logan wheeled through the door, Max slumped on his lap. She had not regained consciousness in the car and he was getting worried. Original Cindy gave him a little extra push as he moved the chair into the living room.

"Help me lay her on the couch," he said.

Original Cindy came around to take Max from his lap. He could tell that Cindy was upset, both at Max's condition and at what she had seen that night. If they could only get Max on the couch...if only Max would open her eyes and show them that Sebastian's dramatic cure had worked and not short-circuited her brain.

He should have taken her to the hospital. He should have called Sam to make sure she was okay. He knew that Max wouldn't want him to do either, but maybe this time it shouldn't be her call. Maybe sometimes he knew better.

Logan leaned forward and touched the soft skin on her face. She looked so peaceful lying there, but Max was not a peaceful person. It seemed wrong to see her so still.

Yesterday, he had been so fixated on getting out of the chair, it was the only thing he could think about, but as Max lay there, so very quiet, Logan was finding that walking just wasn't as important any more. As much as he dreamed of walking again, what he truly could not bear would be to live his life without Max.

God, please, make her open her eyes, he prayed.

She had slipped into his life when he least expected it. Up to that point, everything had been going along fine. He had established Eyes Only as the only real source for free journalism, and while it was still exciting, his days as a fighter for truth and justice had started to wear on him. It was hard to bear the burden of fighting for the rights of people in an unjust world and some days it felt like that battle was never going to end.

Until the night Max showed up in his apartment holding that statue; it was like someone had turned up the adrenaline. He had to know who and what she was. He had to see her again.

Of course, then Bruno Anselmo came along and knocked him off his high horse...literally. Logan had to be honest with himself. He had not made a good crip at first. He had been sullen, bitter and basically a real ass to be around. But unlike everyone else in his life who tiptoed around him, Max didn't put up with his shit. He had needed that more than she might ever know. Max was the one who saved him. She was his miracle. And maybe she would be again.

He needed her to wake up. She was scaring the shit out of him; let alone what she was doing to Original Cindy in the kitchen. He couldn't live without her...he couldn't even imagine it.

Damn it, Max...what were you thinking? Don't you know that I don't need you to save the world to love you? I need you in my arms.

He could feel her blood in him, when it first flowed into his veins and now as it was coursing through his body. Maybe it wouldn't create the miracle they both had hoped for, but having her within him, it had given him the strength to save her earlier that night. God, he hoped he had saved her in time. If he hadn't, he would never forgive himself.

If she woke up...when she woke up, he was going to pull her close and never let her go. He needed to feel her skin next to his, closer than any two people could possibly be. He needed her back in his bed. He could not bear the thought of never seeing her look at him with those beautiful eyes again, to never hear the sound of her voice. He would not be able to continue without her.

Logan reached down to stroke her hair, his mind still deep in thought. It was taking too long. She should be awake by now.

Without her in his life, he wasn't sure what the past few months would have been like. During his recovery, Max was out there like some unreachable goal. He had no expectation that she might reenter his life, but he had often dreamed about it. After Bling helped him to bed, he would lie there, imagining that she was there, standing in the shadows of his room, watching over him. She was his angel, his dark guardian angel.

When she finally did show up, he had been such a jerk. To be honest, they both were, but Logan could only be responsible for his own actions. He was so afraid of her rejection and at the same time so desperate to keep her in his life that he held her at arm's length. He was so sorry for that now. There were so many changes going on in his life and for the first time Logan found himself lost and unsure. He was no longer the great Eyes Only, but rather a broken man trapped in a body he thought was useless.

She made him realize that he still had a life, that there were many reasons to continue. She gave him the will to live, to recover, and to gain back control over his body and his mission. He had taken so much strength from her. He only hoped that somehow, by finding Hannah or by searching for Zack and the others, that he had been able to return a bit of that to her.

He had never dreamed they could go to the next step, a smile crossing his face as he remembered their first night together. Sure, Bling had told him it was possible, but Max was the one who showed him that he could still love, that he could make a place for her in his heart and his bed. She was the one who gave him the confidence to try things that he had never dreamed he'd be capable of after the shooting. She made him feel sexual again.

I love the feeling of you in my arms, Max, he thought as he leaned forward and touched her arm. I love the way you are so tender and make sure that my needs are being met. You are a kind and giving lover. Each time we've made love has been unique and new for me, as we grow in our confidence and dedication to one another.

He longed to reach down and take her in his arms, to hold her in his lap like he had at the insurance office, the way he had clutched her to his body in the car as Original Cindy drove them back to the apartment. He wanted to give her the strength he had felt in his body as he crawled across the floor to save her.

I'm not used to you being the weak one, to you needing me to save you, he thought, willing her awake. I was so afraid that I would not get there in time, that the implant would have destroyed you. I cursed my body for failing me, again, but hopefully by some miracle, Sebastian's trick has worked. Open your goddamn eyes, Max!

* * *

Logan could hear the sound of Max's voice blending with Original Cindy's in the kitchen. He could only imagine how hard that's been for her to keep this secret from her best friend...how hard it was to tell her.

She's not going to freak on you, Max. I hope you know that...Original Cindy has got your back, he thought.

The front door closed and Max came down the hallway to the living room.

"Everything okay?" Logan asked.

She nodded and crossed to him. Sitting on the couch, she took his hands in hers.

"I'm sorry I scared you, that I took off like that."

He nodded and tipped his head up and looked at her. "You scared the shit out of me." He wanted to tell her how much, but she looked like she might crack if he said anything.

A small tear slid down her cheek. She looked more upset than he had ever seen her. He held out his arms, inviting her to join him in the chair.

"I just did it, took the implant without even thinking," she cried, her face tucked into his neck, her body heaving with more emotion than he had ever seen.

"You were protecting your friend, Max," he whispered, his face nestled in her hair. He pulled her tight again, trying to comfort her.

"Can we . . .? Can you just hold me tonight?" she asked.

He moved carefully through the room and into the bedroom, Max still on his lap. He stopped next to the bed and reached to pull back the sheets so she could climb into the bed. He followed her, transferring from the chair to the bed.

"Here, let me," he said as she began to slip her shirt off. Her body was covered with sweat and blood from the fight with the Reds. "Do you want to take a shower? I could run you a bath?"

She looked down at her grime-covered body. "A bath."

He nodded and slid back into the chair. Part of the renovation to the apartment had included re-doing the shower and putting in a new bath. Knowing how much Max loved a hot soak, he was glad he had put in the deeper tub, with jets. Tonight both of their aching bodies would appreciate it.

She followed him into the bathroom, sitting on the toilet as she watched him fill the tub. She had been quiet, unusually subdued since she had regained consciousness.

"There, try that," he said, the tub now filled with hot water and just enough bubbles.

She climbed into the water, sighing as it slipped over her tired, aching body. He leaned over and ran the loofah across her shoulders.

"Do you want the jets?" he asked.

"Only if you join me," she responded.

He slipped the clothes from his body, trying to act suave as he pushed himself up in the chair and wrestled the pants down his legs. These were the moments when he would have given anything for a lower injury, more ab control, more glutes...hell, strength in his legs just so he could pull himself up, stand and slip the garments off more easily.

Finally naked, he slid over to the wide edge of the tub and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Move forward, a little bit," he instructed.

She slid forward in the large tub as he grabbed the rail on the far side and lowered himself into the water. His back rested against the end of the tub as Max slid herself between his legs, her body coming to rest against his.

"Jets?" he asked again.

She nodded and he reached to press the button. As the water began to move, Max chuckled.

"What?" he asked.

"You're dancing," she replied, turning to kiss him gently on the lips.

And he was, the water moving his legs back and forth. He slid back further in the tub, trying to move them away from the stream of the jets, but Max stopped him. She kissed him again and then turned back to face forward as she wrapped her legs around his, bringing them to rest once again.

She sighed and relaxed against his chest, her hand reaching down to find his. With their left hands linked, she went in search of his right hand. She pulled it down between her legs, bringing it to rest on her clit.

"Are you up for that?" he asked.

She nodded and smiled. "Sex is good for what ails you, Logan Cale, don't you know that by now?"

She was insatiable. If he had gone through what she had experienced that day, he'd be out of commission for at least a week. It looked like the Manticore genes aided recovery in all areas.

"I love when you touch me here," she said, moving his hand back and forth across her pelvic bone. "It does something to me, makes me wild." She arched back into him as the warmth filled her body. She shuddered slightly as she began to climax. Her hand tightened on his, forcing it to press harder, move faster. The orgasm swept through her body and she collapsed back against him once again.

"Feel better?" he whispered into her ear, nipping it lightly with his lips.

She slipped from his arms and turned to face him, kneeling before him, the water and bubbles sliding down from her shoulders and arms.

"Logan Cale, you are what the doctor ordered," she responded, leaning in to kiss him. His lips parted and she pressed further, her tongue teasing his. She explored further as her hands moved from beneath the water to his chest. She rested them on his strong, broad shoulders. Her tongue plunged deeper now, pressing into him. She slid his body down, until the water covered his body and she was on top of him. His head remained just above the water line and she continued to kiss him. His arms were around her now as she controlled the movement of their bodies. She slipped her hand down and felt his penis. She moved until it slipped in and then used her body to draw him further within her.

He watched, knowing what was going on underneath the water. He thought that he could feel it...somehow, something was happening there. He was growing hard inside of her and it wasn't all Max's efforts...well, at least not her efforts at the moment. It was her blood. It was healing him.

A look of pleasure crossed Max's face as she pressed him against the back of the tub once again. She smiled as she watched Logan's orgasm shudder down his rib cage and into his belly. The man could orgasm just about anywhere on the top half of his body.

He had felt the climax coming, but this time it was different. It felt different. It was below the injury line. It wasn't his imagination.

He was coming back. It was just going to take time, but Logan Cale had never been a patient man. It wasn't in his nature to wait.

 


	5. Dreams Comin' True

Logan stretched as he slowly woke up. He knew that Max would be gone in the morning. She often was. Her body required so little rest and it was hard for her to just lie and watch him sleep. He was sure that she wanted to check on Original Cindy. It had been a hard night for all of them.

Resting his head against the pillows, he considered the day ahead of him. He wanted to do some more investigation into the Reds that Max had encountered the night before. He was worried that they might reappear. It was always better to know what you might be up against.

He rolled over on his side and looked out the window. He could lie there all morning if he just didn't have to pee so badly.

Flopping on his back, Logan considered that revelation. He had to pee. Now. He could tell that he had to pee.

He quickly pulled the sheets back, and then pushed himself up in the bed so he could see his legs. There was a twitch, then movement in his right toe. He slowly pointed his foot toward the end of the bed. He tensed the muscle in his calf. It was a small movement, but definitely perceptible. He repeated the tests with his left leg with similar results.

He would have spent longer on it, but he really had to pee.

Logan slid into his wheelchair and headed for the bathroom. He transferred from the chair to the stool, stopping for a moment to look at the supply of catheters he usually used in the morning. This might be the first of many mornings when he no longer had to worry about sterile procedures, about getting all the urine out, let alone the unpleasantness of urinary tract infections. He slid his hand down and smiled as he watched the fluid empty from his body. The only thing better would have been to stand over a urinal at a ball field.

* * *

Logan heard the front door open. Bling was so reliable; you could almost set a watch by his schedule.

"In here," he called from the bedroom. He had pulled a t-shirt on over his shorts. He usually wore running pants to work out, but today he wanted to see every single muscle move.

"Morning, Logan," Bling responded as he entered. His eyes dropped to scan over Logan's legs. "Anything else happening?"

Logan couldn't stop the smile from crossing his face.

"What?" Bling asked.

"I peed," Logan answered, trying to be casual.

Bling nodded, his lips pursed as he tried not to smile. "That's good, man."

"And, I think, just maybe, I had a morning woody."

"So, you ready to try some other stuff, or are we just going to stick with bladder management and sexual performance?" Bling asked.

"Oh, I think we can try something else," Logan responded, wheeling out of the room ahead of Bling.

* * *

"Ok, we need to take it easy here, Logan, I mean it, man," Bling said, his hands wrapping around Logan's waist. Logan's arms shook slightly as he leaned on the parallel bars. "Let me take the weight, you just worry about moving your feet."

Logan tried to relax slightly and stand a bit straighter as Bling began to support him. His eyes dropped down to his feet, his concentration focused on moving the right one forward. He grunted, his total effort going into just picking that damn foot up. It moved a millimeter...then another and then was down on the floor again.

"Good job, man," Bling responded, encouraging him to keep going.

"Dammit!" Logan called. He was frustrated and excited, it was amazing to see the foot move at all, but he didn't want to crawl. He wanted to run. Now.

* * *

They had worked all morning and Logan had managed to walk about five steps. He was frustrated with his progress, but it was five steps further than he had gone the day before. It was five steps further than the doctors had expected he would go.

More importantly than walking, he could stand on his own. He had done it without Bling's help on three occasions and felt confident enough that when he saw Max that night he would have something to show her.

Wheeling into the kitchen, he remembered that they had worked straight through lunch without stopping. His stomach growled and he smiled as he felt it gurgle. It was so strange feeling his body come alive again. He had forgotten so much of what it felt like to have the other part of him feeling and sensing.

He stopped in front of the refrigerator and set the brake on his chair. Setting his feet on the floor, he grasped the counter and with one swift move, stood up easily. He swayed slightly for a moment and then evened his weight out on both feet. He had occasionally used the standing frame to prevent his bones from weakening, but this felt so much different. It almost gave him the feeling of vertigo he had suffered from when he stood on top of tall structures. At the same time, it was exhilarating.

He pivoted slightly to reach into the cupboard above the fridge. He had stored some cookbooks of his mother's up there, books she had gotten from the Junior League and the church she had grown up in. He fingered the covers, thinking of the women who put these books together, back when the world seemed sane and there was such a thing as the Junior League.

His mind caught in the past, Logan was stunned to find himself tilting toward the floor. He reached back to try and grab the chair, but instead landed flat on the floor, his feet tangled in the footrest.

"Everything okay in there?" Bling called from the office.

Logan was fine, the wind knocked out of him, but fine. He sat up easily as Bling appeared in the door.

"You need some help?" he offered.

"Nah, I think..." Logan's voice trailed off as he bent his knees up and put his palms down on the floor. Slowly but carefully, he stood up, grabbing the counter for support as he stood again.

"Take it slow, man," Bling warned.

"I know...I know," Logan answered. Bling picked up the cookbooks and set them on the counter as Logan eased himself back into the chair. "Damn," he exclaimed as he sat down.

"What?"

"I think I bruised my ass."

* * *

He was waiting for her when she got home. He wanted to show her so badly what he'd accomplished, what she'd done for him, but he was still a bit afraid that he would fail in front of her.

He had planned it all out, and after checking to see how Original Cindy was doing, he made her close her eyes. As she stood in front of him, he again moved his feet off the footrest and with a small effort, pushing off the chair and even more from his newly energized legs, he stood fully upright in front of her.

He pulled her hands away from her face.

"It's like some kind of miracle," she gasped.

"You're the miracle. You did this. You gave me back my life," he said, and he meant it. He knew that not everyone felt as desperate as he did in the chair, but for some reason it had felt like living on death row with a never ending round of stays.

"Thank the clever folks at Manticore," she said, smiling at him. "I'd forgotten how tall you were."

Logan laughed and then felt himself begin to slip and fall. Max caught him and lowered him back into his wheelchair.

"There's always tomorrow," she said, smiling at him again. She had hoped that the transfusion would work, but hadn't dared to dream that this would happen.

"Yeah, tomorrow," he sighed.

"You're going to have to take it slow."

"I don't want to take it slow. I want to go fast," he responded, his voice wavering between a growl and a whine.

"Oh, yeah?" she teased.

"Yeah," he answered, his eyes locking on hers.

"Well, in that case... There's something I've been wanting to do with you ever since we first met. I think you might be up for it."

As she walked toward the door, Logan followed. Little did Max know, but he was definitely up for anything that night.

* * *

Logan followed closely behind Max as she slipped down the alley. Finally they stopped in front of a dumpster. She pulled it out slightly and eased her Ninja from behind.

"My extra parking space," she explained. "You think you're up for standing again?"

He nodded and eased himself up from the chair one more time. He had often imagined what it might feel like to race through the dark streets of Seattle with Max on her bike, but with his lack of abdominal control, there was no way he could have sat on her bike...until that night.

She helped him as he slid his leg over the bike and settled into the front of the seat. He could feel the soft leather beneath his legs, the powerful rumble of the engine as it revved slightly.

Max slid behind him, his chair now safely tucked away in the Ninja's former parking space.

"You ready to ride?" she asked as she slipped the helmet over his head.

He responded by revving the motor again. He was more than ready to go.

* * *

As they raced through the city, moving effortlessly from sector to sector, Logan began to feel more and more alive. It was amazing what it did for him to have the wind whipping at his face, the sensation of Max's arms snug around his waist. He never wanted the evening to end.

Finally she directed him to pull over near a small neighborhood park. During the day it was filled with drug dealers, but the curfew seemed to keep them away during the night. Max slipped off the bike and turned to face him. His feet were resting on the ground on either side of the bike.

"You want to take a breather?" she asked.

He took her hand and pressed it down in front against his erection.

"I'd rather take you home," he answered.

* * *

The motor purred softly as he pulled into the parking garage. He stopped in his usual parking space and turned off the bike. Max slipped from the seat behind him and held out her hand so he could get off the bike.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her close, steadying himself with her body.

"God, I love holding you in my arms this way," he said, brushing his hands down her long, smooth hair. His hand slipped to glide over her backside, down to her ass. It was a totally different experience to hold her this way...not better or worse than before, but different.

He pivoted slightly and dragged his feet slowly as he moved her toward the wall. Looking to make sure no one else was in the garage, he slipped open the button on his pants with his right hand, his left hand against the wall to brace himself. She pulled the zipper down on his pants, allowing his erection to break free. Keeping her hands on his waist for support, she dropped to her knees and began to tease the end of his penis with her tongue.

Slowly she worked her way up and down, teasing his soft skin as it grew harder under her ministrations. Logan gasped slightly, his back arching away from the wall. Max tightened her grip on his waist to keep him upright as she continued to work her way around the tip of his penis, tasting the cum as it slipped from his body.

"Down...lie down," Logan cried, fearing that he would lose his balance in the throes of their passion. He also wanted to do something for her and it was too hard in this precarious position.

Max helped him drop to his knees, her arms now on his shoulders, her mouth moving over his neck and up toward his ears. Logan pressed back on her, pushing her toward the floor, his hands pulling her clothes from her body. It wasn't passion, but rather a primal urge that was forcing him to be on top of her, to take her, to have her in him. He could barely think, other than wanting to ram...

"Logan," Max said, taking his face in hers, "slow down."

He wanted to, but he didn't. He wanted to fuck her brains out. Now. He had done romantic, he had done gentle, and now he wanted to do her hard.

"I don't want to go slow. I want to go fast," he said, smothering her neck with his mouth, grasping, reaching, touching every part of her body. He slid his pants down slightly so he could enter her. He pressed forward, filling every inch of her. He heard her gasp, as he pressed further into her body.

"Oh, god, Logan!" she called, not worrying who would hear her.

He rocked against her, feeling the orgasm wash over his body, watching as her body climaxed again and again. Finally he fell against her on the floor.

"I can't believe we just did that," he exclaimed, turning on his side to look at her. To be honest, he was more than a little shocked...he would have never taken himself for someone who would do it in a parking garage. But there was something about the evening...

Max smiled back. "You ready for bed?"

"Yeah, but I think you better go get my other chair," he answered. "No way can I walk upstairs after that!"

"You don't think that latest injection of Manticore juices did enough?" she teased, holding out her hand.

Logan grabbed her hand and slowly got to his feet. "Well, maybe if I have a little help from a revved up girl..."

Max slipped her arm around his waist as they slowly walked to the elevator.

 


	6. Nowhere to Run

What I said to Logan was true...it was never about him being up and around that made him special to me. It never mattered at all. What mattered was that he was the first person in a really long time who made me feel special, who I could be real with and tell all of my secrets to. He was the first person I ever truly showed my heart to.

You don't have to be able to walk to see someone's heart.

* * *

I can see him standing along the edge of the harbor, in amongst the debris and garbage. Logan Cale is the only person I know that's romantic enough to actually go down by that water and really enjoy it. I'm afraid some of my transgenic blood has gone to his brain, making his sense of romanticism even more pronounced. Either that or it temporarily killed the cells that create common sense.

He calls to me and before I really take the time to consider what I'm doing, he has me down by that dirty water in my bare feet. The winter is pretty mild around here, but it's really too cold to be walking barefoot, let alone getting in this water. Manticore gave us immunizations to protect us from this kind of pollution, but Logan really should be more careful.

But he's so happy. I've never really seen him like this...except for sometimes when Eyes Only makes a particularly good sting, but no, this is still different. He's giddy. Logan doesn't often do giddy...he's more of the brooding type.

I try to resist his charm, but he pulls me to him, reining me in with the handle of his cane. Not even my news of a fresh chicken waiting in his kitchen seems to affect his enjoyment of standing on this stinking beach.

"It's beautiful, isn't it? And it's funny, for the first time in a long time... I feel like anything...and everything is possible."

It's amazing to watch him like this. I guess I never really understood what he had lost because he never seemed any different to me. Logan on wheels was just Logan. Now I kind of wonder what Logan walking will be like. I feel like things are going to change. I just don't know how.

He pulls me into an embrace, his eyes piercing into mine.

"I see a poulet chez Cale in your future with a bottle of pre-pulse Nuits-St. George--say around... 8:00?"

Logan...a good meal...a great bottle of wine. I am there. And then afterward, well...hopefully we won't take another tour of the floor of his parking garage.

"This is a restricted area. Repeat: This is a restricted area."

I tuck my face into his body, hiding from the hover drone. I hate those things...they make me feel like I will always have to hide, that my life will never be my own.

We move quickly to get our shoes back on and then we have to separate. Normal is beginning to call me a dilettante and I don't want to lose my job. Being able to move around the city freely is worth working in that shit hole any day of the week. Besides, I'd miss my peeps.

"So I'll see you tonight?" Logan asks, reaching for my hand. He pulls me close again and leans down to press his lips against mine. It's going to take me a long time to get used to seeing him standing in front of me, of looking up to him, but then again we've got our whole lives to get used to it.

"Tonight."

* * *

When Logan answers the door, it seems so different. I have come to this apartment so many times, but this night feels very different. Things have changed between us and I don't know for sure what that means for our future. It's not that I think that we got together because of Logan's chair, but his whole outlook is different. What if a transgenic freak isn't in his game plan any more?

"Hey," he says, smiling at me from the front door.

"Hey," I respond, walking into the apartment at his invitation. He's got candles lit and soft music playing. We're a long way from the floor of his parking garage.

"Very nice, Mr. Cale," I say, walking ahead of him into the living room. I can smell the chicken baking in the kitchen. I sit down on the couch where a bottle of wine waits on the coffee table.

"I thought I'd try to woo you," Logan says, pouring me a glass of wine.

I take the glass from his hand and taste it. The wine is amazing.

"Well, this will work," I respond, setting the glass down on the table. He's turned the romance on full blast, that's for sure.

Logan sits down next to me and takes me in my arms. "I just want to thank you, Max, for giving me my life back, both before and now."

I think I know what he means, at least I hope I do. We have been living our lives together for the past few months and if I'm reading Logan, he's trying to tell me that nothing has to change at all.

He presses me back against the couch, sliding his hands up under my shirt and teases my nipples through my bra.

"You have entirely too many clothes on, Max Guevara," he whispers into my ear. "I think I need to do something about that."

He stands up, holding his hand out to me. As I stand up, he pulls me close, encircling me with his arms. "I love holding you like this. I never want to lose this, Max."

I follow him to his bedroom, where he playfully pushes me down on the bed. I'm seeing signs of the madman who fucked my brains out the other night, but at least this time there's the comfort of his mattress underneath me.

"I want to see every inch of you, Max," he snarls, pulling my boots off and tossing them across the floor. He moves on to pull my pants off and then my blouse. His hands rake over my skin, making it known that he owns every inch of me.

He makes quick work of his own outfit and again presses me back against the pillows. Foreplay is a thing of the past as he plunges himself into me. I'm tight and he fills me to the hilt.

"Easy, Logan!" I call as he presses me back again. I had no idea he was such an enthusiastic lover.

"Sorry," he pants as he collapses against me.

In his excitement to pleasure himself, I think that Logan has forgotten there are two of us here. I slide my hands down his side, trying to entice him into some play. He takes my hand and presses it down on his penis.

"Here," he states.

I understand that he has sensation there, but I want more...I want our old, softer, slower style of love. I lean in to kiss him, and then quickly roll on top of him.

"You want it fast, buddy?" I ask. "I can give you fast."

My tongue races over him, touching every part of his body as fast as I can. I press up into his arms, underneath, across his chest, down to his belly, along his scar...running my tongue over every inch. Finally I stop at his engorged shaft.

"You want a little cat wash there too?" I tease.

He nods, panting slightly with anticipation.

I slow down; trying to show him that fast isn't always better. I tease at the end, where a little drip of cum waits. I work my way up, slow and smooth, moving deliberately toward the top, tracing along the edge of his skin. My tongue moves over and teases his left ball, then his right. He gasps again, his back arching up a bit from the bed.

"You're killing me," he cries.

I slip down again, this time taking him deep in my mouth, pulling hard until he comes and fills me with his juices.

I'm lying limp against his chest, our legs entwined under the sheets when the phone rings. Logan picks it up, listens and then hands it to me.

It's Zack.

As the Ninja and I race toward Wyoming, toward Zack, I realize that tonight was the first time I had ever made love with Logan without coming myself. Maybe it was because we got interrupted. Maybe.

* * *

Zack and the others have been gone for a week, but so much has changed. I don't know if it's the loss of my siblings or Logan. He's been acting weird...nearly since the night I tried Zack's phone number.

He saved the chicken for me, but when it was time for us to sit down, he made and excuse and sent me on his way. He's been so distant. Maybe it was all talk...maybe there isn't room for me in his new, walking life. I do know that he hasn't left any room for intimacy. Maybe he's already gotten himself a honey who doesn't have to run from black ops guys and doesn't have a whacked out family who constantly calls on her to get them out of jams. Maybe he's sick of using his Eyes Only connections to get my people out of Seattle safely.

It's just so hard for me to believe that I so totally misjudged him. I thought we had something good going on. When he told me that he loved me, I believed him. I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

I was such a sucker.

Last night was really the end of it for me. Logan had been talking about this basketball game for weeks, so I went out and got tickets for him--a special deal. But when I went to pick him up, he wasn't there. And not only did he stand me up, but he didn't call. No explanation at all.

I really don't need this trouble in my life, but it's all so sudden and really unlike Logan. It's like he's hiding something from me...but what the hell would he be hiding?

I looked him up this morning, trying to press him for an explanation for his actions. It was like he was too busy to even talk to me. I don't mean to assume I'm something so special in his life that he can't find something better, but he wouldn't even look me in the eye and he didn't try to touch me.

Logan always used to touch me. If nothing else, that tipped me off that something was wrong...very wrong.

* * *

It wasn't very trusting, but I followed him. By the time I was headed back to Fogle Towers, I was so angry, I wasn't sure I'd still want him if he'd take me. I had opened myself up to him, shared my past, what they had done to me and in the end, he had turned to one of the very people who had worked so hard to make my life hell. It was the ultimate betrayal.

I can hear Logan on the phone as I walk into the apartment. Anger filled every bone in my body as I march over and cut off his phone call.

"We need to talk," I spit out at him.

"That was an informant with evidence on how the sector police are extorting money from--" He turns to look at me. "What happened to you?"

I confront him about Vertes, still unwilling to believe that he knew about her connections to Manticore, that he might have any understanding of what she had done to us. He comes back at me with righteous indignation that I would follow him. Doesn't he understand that I worry about him? That I know when he's acting weird?

He seems shocked to hear that Jace is after the good doctor and a bit too worried for Vertes' safety for my taste. The insults fly back and forth as he tells me he knows all about her dirty past. I can hardly stomach the thought.

"Not everything I do is automatically your business," Logan says, staring out the window over the Seattle night sky.

"Excuse me, but finding one of the bright young sadists who did experiments on us back in the day certainly is my business," I respond. I cannot believe he would do this.

Logan turns to face me, his body limp, depressed. "Let me see if I can break this down for you then, Max."

"Please do."

"Whatever else Dr. Vertes has done, she is probably the only person on the planet who can keep me from landing back in a wheelchair."

I can't believe this. He would turn to HER when I could help him?

"What are you talking about? If you need another blood transfusion, all you gotta do is ask."

"That won't help. My body's rejecting your blood cells. The nerves in my spinal cord are unraveling as fast as they were repaired. We'll know in the next forty-eight hours whether the treatment even works…if I'll be able to keep walking."

I had no idea. God, why would he keep this a secret from me? I want to ask, but he's more concerned about where Vertes has gone. I tell him that she's at the safe house. I might hate her, but there was a reason Logan had contacted her and I wasn't going to give Jace the satisfaction of killing her before I knew what that reason was.

"Look. . . Max . . . I didn't want to tell you about this. For all kinds of reasons," Logan says, stepping toward me. He takes one step and then crumples, falling flat on his face at my feet.

I rush to help him, but he waves me away, trying to help himself up. It kills me to watch him struggling and I lift him into his chair. I would never have done that before, but now he seems so fragile, so broken.

"I gotta ask you--Is it easier for you if I'm in the chair?" he spits at me, his face filled with anger.

"Come on. Let's go see her," I reply, throwing his jacket at him. I turn and head for the door, hearing him follow me a minute later.

Logan is silent in the elevator. I follow him into the garage, thinking how only a week earlier we had made love right in this spot. It seems like a million years ago.

He pulls the door of the Aztek open and steps carefully from the chair into his seat. I can see now what I didn't want to see earlier--every step is costing him plenty. I was so blind! He had been falling apart right in front of my eyes and I had been so busy worrying about my life to actually notice his.

"I'm sorry," Logan finally says, nearly ten minutes after we've left the apartment.

"I understand," I respond -- and I do. I can see what it's meant to him to recover his legs. I can see that joy that he's gotten from it.

"I'm not sure you do. I felt what it was like to function like a regular person again. To be whole and complete."

Whole and complete? What does he mean by that?

"You've never not been that to me," I finally reply, and I mean it. I have never considered that Logan was less in bed or in my life because he used a chair.

"Staying out of that wheelchair matters more to me than anything else in my life. Anything. And if I wind up back in it… Let's just say that I'm not gonna live my life like that."

I can't answer. He's in no mood to hear me disagree and I can't find the words to tell him that it will be okay. I might know that it will, but he is going to have to believe it to make it so.

* * *

In the end, I'm not sure I've been able to say anything that will make him feel better. My fear as I raced from Vertes' office back to Logan's apartment almost overwhelmed me. I'm not sure I can live my life any longer without Logan. I couldn't bear to lose him.  
I run up the steps, unwilling to wait for the elevator.

"Logan! Logan! Logan!" I call, running into the apartment. I'm so afraid of what I will find that I can barely take another step.

The gun is lying on the desk. My eyes lock on it until I hear the door open behind me. I turn and run, the fear making my heart race in my chest. I see him and drop before him, pulling him and the chair into my embrace.

"I thought…I was so scared…the ambulance…"

He hugs me back, his head dipping down to rest on mine. I squeeze my arms around him, wanting to protect him against all in the world that would seek to harm him.

"It's okay," he whispers into my hair.

I slip from his arms, my eyes racing over his body, making sure that he is whole and truly alive. He appears unharmed, but I can barely believe it. He moves past me and goes to the desk. He doesn't say anything, but picks up the gun and puts it away.

"Little accident upstairs. Mrs. Moreno fell down. Bathroom sink overflowed." His voice is clipped and emotionless, but he's here.

"She okay?" I ask.

"Yeah. She'll be fine," Logan responds.

I'm sure she will, but I'm not so sure about us.

"Logan..."

"No, Max, don't," he responds.

We can't leave this hanging out here. It's too much. I cross to him, dropping bonelessly down on his lap, collapsing against him, my arms around his neck, holding on and never letting go. It's as if the adrenaline rush is over and I can't move. I know that I can't be separated from him. I'm not sure I can live without him any longer. I've never relied on anyone like this...trusted anyone like this, come to treasure anyone like this.

I've never cared about his wheelchair, his legs, whether or not he could get it up...I love his mind and his heart, let alone his body...moving or not, the man is gorgeous. Atrophy is never going to change that and to be honest, I have always been more of a shoulders and arm woman.

He slowly rolls us toward his bedroom. We slip into the bed, pulling the blankets over us. Our clothing between us, I curve my body to match his and wrap my arms around him.

Wordlessly we lie there for hours until finally sleep comes.


	7. Sorrows Undone

After that first night I thought it would be different for us. Not our first night together, but the first night after Logan's relapse. Seeing the words in his medical file, not finding him in his apartment...the gun on his desk. I thought I had lost him. That night in his bed, I swore to myself that I would never lose him again.

But somehow he disappeared from me. I still saw him each day, but he was slipping away a little bit each time I came to his apartment. I tried to talk to him, but let's admit it...communication has never been my strong suit. I just didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to tell him the chair never mattered.

Don't get me wrong, I said that all the time, but somehow my words didn't seem to affect him. It was as if they went in one ear and out the other. I needed to do something to shake it up. I thought that maybe getting out of our routines, out of this city would help. I thought it couldn't hurt...but then again what do I know? I'm just a escaped medical experiment gone wrong.

* * *

The trip back to Seattle was long and silent. By some miracle from a power I'm not so sure I believe in, the seizures appeared to finally be subsiding. I hate the way they make me feel...weak and out of control. It's probably how Logan feels on a daily basis. There was a look of humiliation on his face in the bar when BC and his pals took us on...there was no way he could have prevented being flipped out of his chair, and I just reacted, like I was trained to do, but I could see later what it cost him. He wants to protect me and sees the chair as his downfall. It's just not the case. Nobody is going to protect Max Guevara. Nobody but me myself.

But he did protect me tonight. Without him, we would all be dead...him, me and Sage. Sidekick or not, he had our backs.

I reached over and slipped my hand into his, squeezing it lightly. I've never enjoyed killing, but I know it's a part of doing battle. I'm not sure I would remember the number, let alone the details of the situations that required me to use that kind of deadly force, but Logan would always remember this night. It would weigh heavily on him. It was his nature and why I loved him.

"Here, on the left," Logan pointed to the garage where he had the Aztek worked on. He sighed heavily as he lowered his arm back to his lap.

"Is it very sore?" I asked.

He turned and stared at me.

"Sage told me, I know you took a shot in the chest," I whispered, not wanting to alarm our driver.

"It's fine, Max," he responded, his voice tired.

I wouldn't press him. The day had been long and the night longer. I was just glad that we were back in Seattle and there was some hope of eventually lying down in my own bed.

* * *

"So..." Logan looked over at the Aztek, sitting outside the garage door. The tail lights of the tow truck were the only sign of life on the street and they were quickly headed toward sector seven.

"So..." I replied.

"Shall we call a cab?"

"I can get my bike."

Our words tumbled out on top of each other, neither suggestion making much sense. No cab was coming here at this time of night and despite his protestations that he was fine, there was no way Logan was going to be able to ride my bike in his current condition.

"Nice night for a walk," he answered, pushing his chair forward a half stroke. I heard him gasp slightly.

"Can we save this argument until after we've showered?" I asked, placing my hands on the back of his chair. I knew it was a sign of his independence, but handles on this chair would really be a help right now.

His back straightened and I knew if I came around and looked, his jaw would be clenched. I hated to have to be right, but this was the only way we were getting home and quite frankly the stench on Logan was motivating me a great deal more than worrying about his dainty pride.

With a heavy sigh of exasperation, I leaned forward and began to push Logan's chair up the hill toward the Towers.

* * *

Finally we rounded the corner and his front door was in sight. I was half tempted to let him go in by himself, but I was half afraid I might come back and find him in a pile in the living room in the morning...or worse yet, in the office with that gun again.

We rode up on the elevator without a word. As soon as the door opened, he pushed himself out into the hallway, toward his door. I could see that the movement was costing him some effort, but decided to hold my comments to myself. Asking for help was not a Cale family trait.

He left the door open, a de facto invitation to follow him in, I guessed.

"You, uh, need anything?" I asked, trailing him into the kitchen.

"A shower," he retorted.

I could have told him just how much, but that would've reinforced the fact that he has bits of...well, evidence of the events of the evening on his clothing. Manticore taught us how to kill without feeling remorse, to do our duty, but I remembered the first one. I remembered feeling empty for hours after the kill.

I wanted to tell Logan about that...about my first one, but I couldn't. Now I realized the enormity of what we did as children, what it might seem like to those who weren't a part of the military establishment. A group of children killing a defenseless man wouldn't probably play very well in front of this crowd. No, it would be better to leave that story in the past.

I sat at the table and watched as Logan drank a Scotch neat. He reached for a second one, grimacing slightly as he grabbed the bottle on the counter.

"Can I at least look at it?" I asked, getting up to cross to him.

He didn't answer, but he didn't say no either. I slid the zipper down on his coat and helped him slip his arms from it. He hissed lightly as I slipped his right arm out. I tossed the coat aside and reached for the bottom hem of his shirt.

"Just lean your head forward, let me do the work," I instructed. I didn't want him hurting himself any further by straining chest muscles, let alone the possible damage if he had a cracked rib.

"Does it hurt to breathe?" I asked as I freed his left arm from the shirt.

Logan shook his head. "No, just when I...you know...move."

My fingers trailed down his chest, tracing over the bruise that had formed just below his left nipple.

"Little bit lower and I wouldn't have even felt it," Logan said, smiling a bit.

I looked up at him, a smile crossing my face as well. "There's always next time, Sidekick."

* * *

I waited while he showered. I had considered going in to join him, but I didn't want to jeopardize the little bit of headway we'd made.

I was sitting on the bed when he wheeled in from the bathroom. His boxers were sticking to his wet legs, his hair sticking up the way it does after he's showered. He was so beautiful to me.

"You're still here."

It was more of a statement than a question. I wondered if that was a good thing. I figured if he hadn't told me to leave, I was good to stay. I nodded. "I just wanted...wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Max. Just a little sore, don't worry."

"That wasn't what I was talking about," I answered, sliding further across the bed so he could transfer in next to me.

He stared at me, then shook his head.

"I'm going to bed, Max. The gun is safe in the office."

Dammit, I knew he wasn't going to talk about this.

"I'm sorry, Logan. I thought you might want to talk. I thought we were still friends. I guess I was wrong about that." I moved to get up, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back into the bed.

"We are, Max. We are."

Logan looked away from me, out the window and across the city.

"I know it's probably nothing big to you, but...I..." His voice broke and he couldn't keep talking.

Wiping the tear that had escaped from his eye, he continued.

"When the South Africans had you, the Reds, I would have killed them, but I couldn't. They were superhuman and it was okay to use a deadly force against them. Tonight I...I..."

Logan stopped talking, concentrating all of his will on not breaking down.

"Tonight you took a life...lives," I responded, taking his hand in mine. "But those people were going to kill you. They would have killed you and me and an innocent child. What you did was a good thing, even though it doesn't feel like it right now, Logan. It was okay."

With my free hand, I tipped his chin up so he was looking in my eyes. "You did what was necessary and that's nothing to be ashamed of. That doesn't mean that you have to forget it, but never be ashamed of what you did, Logan Cale."

I leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips. It was our first real touch in days and my lips burned with the touch of his skin against mine. I wanted to take him in my arms, to hold him until the end of time, but it was too soon. He was too vulnerable, definitely not ready for our previous level of intimacy, yet.

I pulled the blankets up over his chest, my fingers running across the bones below his neck.

"Sleep now. We'll talk again tomorrow."

He closed his eyes and I slipped across the room to watch him sleep. I didn't want him to be alone tonight and I couldn't bear to leave him this way.

We still had a lot to figure out, me and Logan. He has got some stuff to work through about walking or not walking, about what he's had to do and probably what it means to be with me. I didn't want to press him on that stuff, but I know that I've begun to ache for him.

That's a first...Max Guevara, not in heat, but maybe...just maybe in love.

 


	8. The One

Logan leaned forward to shut the computer down. Normally he would have gone to bed hours before, but it was one of those nights when he couldn't face the bedroom. Over the past few months, the apartment had come to life with Max there all the time. Now it was too quiet. He knew he was shutting her out, but he wasn't sure how to open back up to her, to show her that he was ready to try again.

She had been there earlier, asking him about his book of poetry. He had shown it to her, only to discover after she left that she had taken the poem he had written about her. He wanted to be angry, but wasn't. He was glad that she had read, touched that she had wanted to keep it.

He had loved his parents, but his writing had been one of the things that had always disappointed his father. What would he think of his son now, working as a journalist and an underground one at that?

His mother would have liked it. She had always supported his endeavors, whether she felt they were the best things for him or not. Losing them had been hard on him, one of the hardest things. He especially missed her at times like this, when he needed someone to talk to, someone to confide in. He needed a hand up and out of this morass he had created for himself.

"Penny for your thoughts."

He turned to find Max standing in the doorway.

"You came back?" he asked.

"Yeah...I went to think and decided it was maybe time to talk."

This was it. He felt like if he didn't open up now, this might be it, he and Max could be through.

"Talking is good," he answered. He wheeled into the living room and transferred onto the sofa. The city was dark below...dark like his heart had been for so long.

"I was gonna go spend time with Original Cindy, but she said she wanted to be alone," Max said, sitting down on the other end of the couch. She turned so her back was against the arm, looking straight at Logan.

"It's hard to lose someone like that," Logan replied.

"Yeah," Max answered, her voice trailing off. She reached for his right hand, taking it in hers. "I'm afraid I'm losing you and that scares me, Logan."

He turned to look at her, his left hand pressing down on the edge of the sofa so he could turn his body to face her.

"You're not going to lose me, Max."

"I think you're wrong about that, Logan. I think a big part of you has already left the building and I'm scared that someday I'm going to come in here and find you with that gun in your mouth and it's going to be too late."

She wasn't holding anything back. He had really hoped that they could both forget about that horrible night, but it still rested heavily on his mind and it appeared that she had given it some thought too.

"Why...why would you do that?" she questioned.

He pulled his hand from hers and faced forward again, his elbows on his knees, his face falling into his hands. After a moment, he turned and looked at her again.

"Because I was scared and tired and it seemed too hard to start all over again."

"What do you mean, again?" she asked.

He was quiet for a moment and then transferred back into his chair. He needed to move, to not be trapped on the couch. Wheeling back and forth, pacing, finally he stopped in front of her.

"Do you have any idea what my life has been like these past few months?"

"Yeah, I think so...I've been here for most of it. Nobody's life is a piece of cake, Logan. It's not a reason to put a bullet in your head." Her words were coming shorter and faster. She wanted to understand, but he was scaring her and it made her angry.

"I don't know, Max. From where I'm sitting, I think your life seems pretty simple. Have you ever considered what mine is like? Have you ever stopped to think what it's like from the time I wake up until I haul my ass back into bed again at night? Ever think about that?"

He waited for comment from her and then continued, "Every morning I wake up and I think it's going to be different. When I'm asleep, I can still run, drive my sports car, live my old life...my real life. But then, pretty soon, I really wake up and here I am again.

"Do you realize that I can't shit without a suppository and my finger up my ass? That I need an implement to pee? Have you ever considered that it takes me at least an hour just to get out of the house because it takes ten times as long to get dressed?

"Sure, I love to cook, but I have to make sure that I don't set a hot plate on my unfeeling lap. I can set the table, but it's going to take six or ten trips to get everything over there.

"The day I went to buy the Aztek with Bling...that was enough to make me want to go home and do myself in right then and there. I had always driven sports cars, a whole string of them. Each time I reach up to haul myself in, lean back down to fold up the chair and then haul the pieces in after me, I remember what it was like to slide behind the wheel of my BMW roadster.

"Think of last week, in the bar...those guys didn't even see me as a human being, let alone a man, let alone your man. They just saw me as a guy in a chair. When I go to the market with Bling...sometimes they don't even talk to me.

"And it's a good thing the power is still out because the light in the bathroom is dying. It's been flickering so much it might cause you to have a seizure right there and I sure as hell can't get up there and change it anymore."

Logan paused to take a breath, allowing Max to interrupt before he could continue his self-flagellation.

"Wow, Logan...I had no idea you were filled with so much self-pity. How do you have any room for the little people...to fight the power? Protect the downtrodden. Blah, blah, woof, woof," Max replied, getting up to stand in front of him. "Do you really not have the courage to go on? Did you think it would be better to just end it, to yourself the indignity of maybe spilling your coffee on your lap? Are you really that stupid?"

Max stalked into the kitchen, unwilling to accept that this was why he would do something so extreme as take his life, that he could have been so unhappy, so desperate and she never saw it.

"Max."

He had come up behind her, moving silently on his rubber wheels. He reached for her elbow, trying to turn her around to face him. Reluctantly she turned, her hand brushing away the tears that she was desperately trying to fight.

"At first it was so much to think about, to do, to relearn. There was the shooting, my fear that I had lost Sophy...that I had failed Lauren and all in the midst of recovering and starting rehab. I had created Eyes Only into such a folk hero...in my mind at least, that for it all to come crashing down around me was almost too much to handle, let alone trying to figure out what I still could and could not do. I was ready to give up, but Bling showed up. He got my butt in gear, got me back into my life.

"It was a lot of work, learning how to live again, but I had commitments out there. I had made promises to people; I had a whole network relying on me. Everything was harder, man, ten times harder, but..."

"But you made it look easy," Max interrupted. "Why wouldn't you tell me how hard it was for you? I could have helped."

"But I didn't want your help. I haven't wanted anyone's help. I'm not asking for your pity...I don't need it, but those things, they're my reality now." Logan reached up to take her hands in his. "I should have told you, Max. About the dark times." His voice cracked with emotion, his eyes filling.

"I thought I had it licked, I did. But then I got feeling back and it all changed. I was a real man for you. I loved being your equal. The night we rode your Ninja, I felt truly alive again, but when I started losing feeling and control...it was worse than being shot the first time. I had my life back one day and woke up lying in my own piss the next. I couldn't face going back to that, don't you get that, Max?"

"Walking made you my equal?" she asked. "You were always my equal, Logan...or my better. You care for people, you fight injustice. You are a much better person than I can ever hope to be and I could care less if our love making involves you throwing me on the floor of your parking garage or you going down on me from your chair. Being with you, sharing my life with you, that's what matters to me."

Max dropped to her knees in front of him, taking his hands in hers. "I want to be with you, no matter what, Logan Cale."

"I just wanted to be the strong one. I know we joke about you being the superhero, but I wanted to be there for you, to not burden you with any of my other problems."

"But at the same time you expect me to be honest with you...I told you things about me that no one has ever known...about Manticore and what happened there. You've seen me vulnerable, when I'm struggling with the seizures or in heat. You never judged me about that, never made me feel like I was defective."

"You aren't, Max. You're perfect to me."

"And I feel the same way about you. If we're in this together, Logan, it's for the whole deal. I need to know about the good stuff and the bad. I need to be able to know that you're being honest with me and that I can be honest with you."

Logan leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. He leaned back, reaching his left hand up to brush away the tears that again threatened to fall on his cheeks.

"I can try," he said, smiling at her.

"And you have to let me in, let me share your whole life with you. We're partners in this, Logan. We have to share the good stuff and the bad."

Logan nodded, then turned to leave the room. He stopped and held his hand out for her to follow.

* * *

Logan wheeled into the bathroom, Max trailing behind him. She watched quizzically and then smiled.

"So you finally going to show me what you're always running off to do before you jump me in bed?" she teased as Logan scooted forward in his chair and pulled his pants down just below his waist.

"I should have told you about all of it, but I didn't want to scare you. It was hard enough to try and be honest about the sex, when I didn't know what I would be able to do...if I'd be able to do anything," Logan said, turning to look at her, his face serious. "I was afraid that I might...well, I could have an accident if I don't do this before...we, you know...have sex."

He turned on the water and quickly washed his hands before reaching for the supply of catheters he kept under the sink. Understanding what he was going to do, Max reached to take the package from him.

"Don't, Max."

She snatched her hands away, caught off guard by the sharpness in his tone.

"No, I mean it's fine...you just need to wash them first," Logan answered. "Just wash them and then I'll show you."

She slipped off the sink and turned to wash her hands, carefully covering them with soap and then rinsing them. She moved away from the sink and went to kneel in front of him.

Wordlessly, he opened the package and then guided her hands under his onto the tube. Her right hand slipped further up, touching the soft, warm skin on his cock. She rested it by the sack holding his scrotum. With her left hand, she moved the tube further within.

"There'll be some resistance there," Logan instructed, his hand still covering hers.

She slid it a little bit farther and then, feeling like it would go no further, he helped her push it in a bit more. Her eyes remained on the tube as Logan removed a clip and it began to fill from his body. Her finger slid down his shaft, until it reached the point where the tube emerged. Logan leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. He moved to slide deeper into her mouth, their bodies connected until he broke the embrace and moved back from her.

Finished, Logan removed the catheter and again washed his hands. Max stood up and slipped hers under the water with him. The silence felt heavy in the small room

Logan pushed his chair back and turned to leave. Max waited for a moment and then followed him into the bedroom.

He transferred to the bed, sliding his body up so his back was resting against the headboard. Max sat down at the end of the bed, with Logan's feet resting against her leg. Unconsciously, she began moving her hand over his foot, rubbing against the smooth skin on the bottom of it.

"I can't feel that anymore," he said quietly, after a moment.

"I know, but I like how they feel," she answered. She took his left foot on her lap and massaged it with both hands, moving the ankle back and forth to keep it loose and limber. After she finished with the left, she moved to the right foot.

Again they were silent; the only sound in the room was her hands moving across his skin, the crack of his ankle joint as she did a range of motion exercise with it. Finally she set the foot down and looked up at him.

Pulling her shirt off, Max tossed her hair as it fell loose from the neckline. Logan reached up and slid his hands under the back of her bra, opening the clasp so her breasts fell free. She rose up on her knees, sliding the zipper down on her pants, quickly pulling both her panties and the black trousers from her legs. He pulled her toward him, his arms around her waist as she knelt on the bed. He swept his tongue back and forth across the smoothness of her abdomen and then down into the bush of crisp hair. His tongue darted in and out, tasting her juices, moving again and again over her clit. She moaned with pleasure as her climax grew.

Her orgasm racked her body, shaking her with spasms until she finally she collapsed back on the bed, on top of his legs, her hands running up over her breast and down her sides.

After a moment Max climbed back on top of him, slipping her right leg over his side and sitting back so she was resting on his thighs. She leaned forward and ran her hands over his chest, across his shoulders and down his arms, down further to the twist of hair that teased from his navel toward his cock. Moving back up his body, she ran her hands along his ribs, watching his smile as she hit his ticklish points.

She dipped her head close and began abrading his skin with her tongue. She worked her way from his right nipple to his armpit, lapping at the sensitive skin, still moving her fingers lightly up and down his side.

Logan's back began to arch and a flush crossed his face.

"Fuck, Max!" he called.

"Gladly," she replied.

She continued to work on his sensitive skin as his orgasm washed up and down his torso. It had been so long since they had shared a moment like this. Logan pulled Max in his arms and gently rolled her over so she was on her back.

He kissed her, first gently and then harder, his mouth covering hers and then working its way down her neck and to her breasts. He moved his hands and mouth over them until the nipples began to respond, hardening under his touch.

Holding himself up from the bed with his left arm, Logan reached down with his right and began stuffing himself into Max. She thrust her hips forward and pulled him in closer, deeper within her.

Max smiled as Logan began to fill her core, hardening as she continued to move her hips against his. The pressure grew as he moved back and forth across her clit, increasing her pleasure moment by moment. Max gasped and then shuddered as pleasure coursed through her body.

Logan dropped against her chest, and she rolled them to their sides. Facing one another they smiled.

"Do you realize something?" she asked.

"What?"

"You're much better in bed again."

A confused look crossed his face. "What do you mean? You like this better?"

"You, Logan Cale, have been one of the most generous and caring lovers I've ever had. I've had the wild sex, when I'm in heat for sure, but when I'm with you it's totally different. You're sensual and you take time to make sure my needs are met. I've always loved that about being with you."

Logan turned to lie on his back, his eyes on the ceiling. "Maybe I should write a book."

Max laughed as she climbed back on top of him. "It could be a best seller...at Crash at least."

Logan pressed up with his elbows into a sitting position, sliding Max down off his lap.

"I need to tell you something else," he said quietly.

Max stopped laughing, moving so she was sitting next to him on the bed.

"That time...after Vertes...it wasn't the first time."

She hadn't expected that. She waited so he could continue.

"When I was sixteen, my dad had a business trip. It was in Chicago. He wanted me to go. He wanted me to start visiting colleges, to look at Northwestern and the University of Chicago. I had a soccer game and I told him I wouldn't go.

"My mom went with him instead. She laughed when the car came to pick them up, told me to be good, to not have a party while they were gone on their 'second honeymoon.'

"My dad had gotten them a suite down by the lake. It was going to be very romantic. He had his own jet.

"It crashed on descent. They were both killed.

"I really tried, Max. I tried to move on and honor them, but it was so hard."

Logan couldn't continue, his body wracked with pain as he began to sob. She pulled him close, his head resting against her shoulders. She tried to pull the pain from him into her own body.

"My aunt found me in my room...I had taken a bunch of her pills.

"They never forgave my weakness."

"And they never got any help? Never sent you anywhere for counseling, to see a doctor?" Max asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, as far away as they could and still be respectable. My senior year at Andover, Yale for college."

"You can't just banish demons like that on your own, Logan. You know that, right?"

He nodded, taking her hand again, and running her fingers up his neck to his mouth.

"Yeah, I know."

"So we do this together?" she asked.

"Together," he said. "Cause I know one thing now...you're the one for me, Max. You take me as I am and I love you for that."

Slipping back into his arms, she answered, "and you're the one for me, Logan Cale. Good, bad, ugly...we're in it."

"Together."

FIN

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: The journey   
>  of this story began over a year ago on an extremely hot weekend in Chicago. We had come together as readers and writers of _X-Files_ fan fiction, but Marlen and Lenore kept talking to me about their new favorite show..._Dark Angel_. I had never planned to write fic for the show since it answered all of my questions, but as usually happens during hiatus...I wanted more. I wrote two chapters and basically abandoned the project until last February when I met up with Miss Willow and her merry band. This group of wonderful writers got me working again on my own story again and have warmly welcomed me into their community. I'm delighted to announce that projects like the Cape Haven mailing list and the _Dark Angel Virtual Season Three_ project have all come out of those original contacts.
> 
> It's been quite a journey and I want to thank every single person who has read and reviewed the story. I've appreciated all of your kind thoughts more than you will know. This is the last chapter in this part of Max and Logan's story, but who knows what might happen to them next...
> 
> ~ Rachel - August 2002


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